Richard Adams - Maia

"Then what is?"

"Well-if we're lucky-an older man's house, where girls are kept as part of the household-you know, for style as much as for pleasure: that's often the way in a rich house; I've seen it. Then we know where we are and what's expected of us, and once we've found our feet we can start lookin' round for friends and opportunities to better ourselves. Tell you the truth, banzi, I can tell you what I doan' like the idea of, even if I can't tell you 'zactly what I do: and I just didn' altogether fancy your prince. Bit too good to be true, somehow. Sort of-I doan' know-well, unreliable. I could be wrong. It's only a hunch. But one thing's for sure-it's no good actin' as if we weren't Lalloc's property, because we are."

She turned to Chia. "What was that you said before supper-somethin' about the curse of the Streels?"

Chia colored. "I shouldn't have said it."

"What is the curse of the Streels?"

"I can't tell you. No Urtan can tell you. Forget I said it."

"Can you put it on people?"

"Great Shakkarn, no! It's something far, far more dreadful. But don't worry, Occula; you'll never come to the Streels."

Occula received this in silence. At length, shrugging her shoulders as though to dismiss the subject, she said, "By the way, banzi, I doan' want anyone else to know where I come from or to hear the story I told you the other night. All right?"

Maia nodded.

"Oh, can you tell stories?" asked Chia. "You're a sort of trained entertainer, aren't you? You've worked in a pleasure-house, haven't you? Did you tell stories there?"

Occula laughed, as though relieved by the change of subject brought about through what she had said to Maia being taken up in this way. "Oh, Cran! I know plenty of stories."

"Come on, then, tell us one now! Tell us about Lespa, or one of the other goddesses." And thereupon, without waiting for Occula's assent, Chia called out to the rest of the room, "Occula's going to tell a story!"

Most of the other girls gathered round. It was plain that Occula was already regarded as an exotic character, possessed of style and magnetism.

For a few moments she remained silent, looking round the little group and tantalizing their eagerness and expectancy. At length she said, "Looks as if I'll have to, doan' it? What did you say-Lespa?"

"Yes, tell us about Lespa," said Chia. "The time when she was just a village girl on earth, same as we are. Or same as we used to be," she added bitterly.

At this there were murmurs of sympathy and fellow-feeling from the others, and as they died away Occula began.

"Well, as you all know, there was a time long ago when Lespa-she that dwells among the glitterin' stars and sends us her precious gift of dreams-was a mortal girl on this

earth. Where she lived none knows for certain, but everyone claims her for their own. Men from Kabin-and I've been with a few-will tell you that it was near Kabin that she dwelt: yet a man from Ikat will tell you that Lespa was a Yeldashay girl. But as I've always understood, she was born in a village of lower Suba, near where the Valderra runs into the Zhairgen."

"Why, so she was!" cried one of the girls. "My mother was from those parts, and anyone will tell you that's where Lespa grew up."

"It's a lie!" said a second girl, furiously. "Lespa came from Sarkid of the Sheaves. My mother told me-"

"Doan' that just show you?" intervened Occula equably. "Well, wherever it was she came from it wasn' my country; so perhaps I'd better just leave this story until you've had time to sort it out among yourselves."

"No, no! Go on, Occula," said Chia, "and you other banzis just shut up and listen!"

"Well, wherever 'twas," resumed Occula, "they were luckier than if one end of a rainbow had come down in the village street, for Lespa was just the prettiest girl that's ever been seen in this world. When she was fourteen or fifteen, she had only to walk through the fields in hay-time to take her father his dinner, for every lad to be driven half out of his mind. They'd gather round, and keep her talkin' through the dinner-hour, and then they'd fight over who should get in trouble for cuttin' his work to walk along with her, back to her home.

"Now of all the young fellows in the village there was one, and his name was Baltis, who could scarcely sleep by night or work by day for the mischief that Lespa quite innocently wrought in his heart. He was a fine, big lad, apprenticed to a smith; and as you know, Baltis is still a general name for smiths all over the empire. If you a meet a lad named Baltis, chances are he's often a smith.

"Baltis never lost the least chance of seein' Lespa. He fought three or four other young chaps and beat them, simply to keep them away from her: and even at that he was none too successful, for however badly he beat them they'd come limpin' back for more of what had brought it on them, just like moths to a candle. He came near to losin' his place in the forge, even though he'd always worked well and was nearly out of his time, simply because he'd

down his hammer and be off if he so much as saw Lespa comin' out of her mother's door,

"Now Baltis-he knew very well what he wanted; but you must understand that as yet Lespa didn'. She was as unversed in the ways of love as a new-hatched butterfly dryin' its wings in the sun. All she knew was that she must be beautiful, for she had only to walk down the street for five or six lads to appear from nowhere and start tellin' her so; and after a time she had to give up bathin' in the river altogether-unless she could persuade her mother to come along with her and keep a look-out. All the same, in spite of bein' ignorant of what it was they were after, she enjoyed-well, which of us doesn'?-the attention of the lads, and used to show it plainly enough when they pleased her. For even in those days of her maidenhood, Lespa had pretty ways and knew-well, just as a mare or a partridge knows-how to give the right answers to those who pleased her, and how to keep them by her side as long as she wanted.

"Well, when a queen bee flies, the swarm follows- right? But she flies high, and only the strongest gets her. And the strongest-well, it often costs him all he's got. Young Baltis, so the tales tell, Was simply not his own master in those days, for he gave all he had. Every minute of his time, every meld he could scrape together went on Lespa. And so it came about that after a time Lespa, even though she couldn' have told just what it was she wanted from him, nevertheless came to feel that she'd like to be alone with him, to be in his arms and let him teach her whatever it was that she still had to learn.

"Yet even when she'd come to this resolve, to find the least chance proved altogether beyond her. For the truth was that her father, who was a prosperous man, with a farm of his own and money comin' in from a half-share in a fishin'-boat on the Zhairgen, considered Baltis beneath the family. He wanted to freeze him off, that's what. So after a bit poor old Baltis gave up comin' to the door, for no one was glad to see him but Lespa, and she'd only get a flea in her ear if she showed as much. But you know how it is: this only made her long all the more for a chance to find out what it was that Baltis wanted so desperately; for she felt it stirrin' in her body as a kind of riddle. She felt as though she must know the answer very well, but couldn' quite see it; somethin' like as though she'd dreamt

it and forgotten, perhaps-but of course those were the days before there were dreams."

"Before there were dreamsl" asked Chia.

"Certainly," replied Occula. "How the hell could there be dreams before Lespa's palace came to be raised among the stars?"